In recent years, patients with so-called adult diseases such as arterial sclerosis, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus have been continuously increasing with prolongation of life expectancy. In particular, patients with hyperlipemia and arterial sclerosis derived therefrom have been remarkably increasing due to excessive intake of high calorie and high cholesterol food, which have become a serious social problem. Medicaments currently used for drug therapy of hyperlipemia and arterial sclerosis are those symptomatically lower cholesterol in blood, and therefore, they cannot be expected to have potency in retracting arterial sclerosis lesions, per se. Arterial sclerosis is characterized by lesions of intimal hyperplasia and lipid accumulation in blood vessels, and it has been elucidated from recent biochemical findings that foaming of macrophages plays a main role in the formation of arterial sclerosis lesions. Accordingly, suppression of the foaming of macrophages may possibly prevent arterial sclerosis by inhibiting formation of arterial sclerosis lesions, or achieve radicular treatment of arterial sclerosis by retraction of arterial sclerosis lesions. However, no medicament having such activity has been known.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a compound having activity of suppressing the foaming of macrophages, and is useful as an active ingredient of a medicament for preventive and/or therapeutic treatment of arterial sclerosis. Another object of the present invention is to provide a compound having the aforementioned activity, and is useful as an active ingredient of medicament for preventive and/or therapeutic treatment of hyperlipemia.